Faculty of Art

Drawing and Painting: Digital Painting and Expanded Animation

Lake Kos

Lovely

Lovely is a 2D animated short film about overcoming anxiety with the help of others.

“Lovely was originally intended as a response to a song I wrote in my first year of university that used orange to represent everything I didn’t like in the world. Orange is my least favourite colour, and I used to avoid painting with it at all costs. I have since realized that a full spectrum of colour makes for prettier paintings, and that everyone has imperfections. I’m known to say “what a lovely day” no matter what the weather is, because the world is a beautiful place and it makes me happier overall when I acknowledge it regularly. That’s where this film gets its name. The main character, Froggie, is in the midst of his transition from tadpole to frog, and his tail often gets in the way of his wizardry and participation in the forest community. His embarrassment at this manifests physically as orange flowers that he coughs up. This concept is loosely based on Hanahaki Disease, a fictional disease that infects those whose (romantic) love is unrequited and causes them to expel flowers from their lungs. I largely intended for this film to be a trans metaphor. Froggie is a weird little guy at a stage somewhere between tadpole and frog, and is still learning how to navigate his new form. The background fairies are all also trans and/or queer in some form, and the main fairy character has male monarch butterfly markings that indicate her transness. Growing up a closeted trans person amongst cis people can be very isolating because it feels like you’re always slightly out of place and that your body isn’t really your own. It was only by hearing other trans stories that I finally realized I wasn’t all that weird after all. This is a story of learning to love yourself by loving others like you, and embracing transitory states. I made Froggie a wizard as a reflection of my decision to become one myself. Wizardry is the flavour I have given my personal philosophy; embracing whimsy and spontaneity, bringing joy into the world, and being in love with life and the world I live in. I decided to become a wizard to reintroduce imagination into my life and make things fun for myself. The setting for this film was based on the woods around my cottage in eastern Ontario during the fall. The autumn leaves denote a transitional state, and are another instance of me trying to incorporate orange into my artwork and appreciate that it can be beautiful. It’s sort of a love letter to the forest, which has always been my favourite place. As kids, we used to play a different game every summer in the forest, and it became a place of infinite possibilities and imagination. To this day, I feel most creative and inspired when I’m in amongst the trees. I spent a lot of time on canoe trips in Georgian Bay during the pandemic, and because I started hormone replacement therapy around the same time, it felt like I was becoming a boy in the forest. Overall, my intent with the setting and backgrounds was to create somewhere magical and peaceful that reminds me of home and growing up. ”